Sleeping
by gunner brat
Summary: Despite going to bed alone, Severus Snape, is never alone once he closes his eyes.


Disclaimer: Don't own/Don't make money

Challenge info: QLFC Season 3 round 13

Team: Appleby Arrows

Position: Seeker

Prompts used:None

Note:I tried to follow canon but if it is OC/non canon then I can't help it.

Severus Snape was staring into the fire nursing his firewhiskey. The previous owner had charmed it a blood red instead of a deep amber. Pushing the icy glass to his lips, he took a deep drink. It burned the entire way down to his stomach. He had liberated a crate of fifty year old Ogden's Firewhiskey from a raid and as the leader of it- he took home two dozen bottles. He stored it because he was never a big drinker.

Severus had many vices in his lifetime and committed many sins but excessive drinking was never one of them before Lily died. He grimaced at the strong alcohol taste but gravity forced it down the instant he swallowed the luxurious red whiskey. His hand clenched into a fist as the ghostly image of Lily flitted into his mind before fading. Lifting the crystal he thought about tossing the glass against the wall and watching the red liquid trail down the gray stones. It was the color of blood and right thickness but the thought chilled him to the bones but he could remember when it made him as warm and alive as the fire and heat the firewhiskey gave him as it coursed through him.

The red liquid swirled as he nursed his drink, rotating it gently, as not not spill the precious liquid inside it. He was unable to look away until the portrait guarding his chambers alerted him to something. He ignored the figure in the painting saying that he didn't want any visitors. The portrait disappeared before saying his intruder was Minerva McGonagall demanding entrance as the de facto headmistress and deputy head.

The wall opened up and he looked away and tilted his head towards the opening. The stern transfiguration professor was looking at him as if he had committed murder, "Where have you been?" she asked. There was a teachers meeting and you were supposed to attend!"

"Today is Lily's birthday. I thought I'd celebrate it…" Severus trailed off motioning to the firewhiskey.

"You won't find happiness from the bottle especially when real life is hard to swallow, Severus." She told him before telling him to budge over and get her a glass.

He summoned it with his wand, unwilling to get up, and made more room for the older woman, "I'm not trying to find happiness- I'm trying to find a bit of peace tonight."

"I was the same when my husband died. She wouldn't want you like this any more than my husband would when I would go try to drink away my sorrows." Minerva told him as she poured it and gaped at the red liquid coming out before drinking half the glass in one gulp, "Where did you get this? What year is it?"

"I believe it's year Ogden's 1942. Or it's a very good fake." Severus told her.

"I believe that is one of their best years. I wish you would have at least informed me you would miss it." Minerva finished her glass and he poured some more into the glass.

"So you could lecture me or refuse to let me off the hook?" Severus thought before answering, "Then allow me to tell you that I'm going to miss Halloween and today for a few years."

"Noted. Am I interrupting a private moment?" Minerva asked.

Severus shook his head, "No, I had planned to drink some firewhiskey before going to bed."

"As long as you don't drink too much I don't care. It's a unique occasion but I don't want to see you drinking like this every night. You managed to survive a war and alcohol only kills in excess." Minerva told him.

Severus nodded but thought about his father. He had seen what alcohol did to families and when his mother fed her husband alcohol when he drowsily told her that he could take more as he puked he wondered why people drank at all. His father never woke up after that night. His mother was unmoved as she informed that she could get in trouble with the law. The police found her actions to be negligent but with a young son, reports of abuse, and hospital records on the nights his father went on a rampage, they decided wait. It was found out in the autopsy that he had extensive liver damage and if he drank in excess a few more times that he would have had liver failure. They didn't press charges against her.

She lived with the guilt for years after. He learned that denial was the best way to deal with it from her so he ignored the problems in life until it became too much. He lived with the guilt that he couldn't help her more but he didn't know how and couldn't find the strength he would find later in life. He had his own regrets to sleep with now. The face of his first intentional victim- he didn't even know the man's name. The face of the first child he had ordered to be killed and their tiny body as blood leaked from every orifice and his screams then terrible silence, after that they all blurred together. The demons that came from his sins hounded him in his sleep but demons he could fight and stare in the eye. It was the ghosts that he was scared of. The first kill, his first child kill, and the others with Lily haunted him.

He wanted her in life- begged that she was spared- but she died because of him. He had her now- or at least a part of her. Albus had a live portrait that Lily had made. She would talk to him sometimes before bed and he would tell her that he loved her and she would say that she loved him too. It was a hollow victory because when he closed his eyes her angry ghost came upon him and he saw her broken and still body on the floor with him holding the knife. Blood was pouring from the wound and he knew she died instantly from the killing curse not a physical wound. He still felt crushing guilt when he closed his eyes. She would rise up and blame him for her death. The acidic rant would bring up his other ghosts and he could almost hear his demons cheer them on.

Minerva left him after he promised that he was done drinking and having a few glasses herself. He sighed in relief as the wall closed. He brought out a larger shot glass and filled it to the brim before swallowing the liquid and immediately regretting it was it burned all the way down and tried to go up. He filled it again and shuddered and twitched as he drank it like a man dying in the desert that found water. The glass was empty again and he filled it up a final time before his stomach began to feel uneasy. He walked unsteadily towards his bed and Lily was sleeping when he approached his bed. He fell onto the soft mattress and fell into an alcohol induced oblivion that allowed him to escape from his nightmares.


End file.
